Quebec City - Insiders' Guide

Quebec City, Quebec

One word best describes Québec City: romantic. Old Québec City looks as if it had been plucked from some charming area in France and gently reassembled on and around an imposing, high-cliffed headland jutting into the powerful Saint Lawrence River.
Québec City is an eminently human habitation of winding streets and venerable buildings that exude more than four centuries of history. Unlike flashy and frenetic Montréal, Québec City is sedate, elegant, and completely secure in its position as the spiritual and political capital of French Canada.
Some 95 percent of its half million people are of French descent. Not many years ago, the city’s elite were mostly of Anglo-Saxon stock, but their number has greatly diminished with the rise of the Québécois and the assertion of their right to be “masters of their own house.” Luckily for the visitor, most of the people who work in the city will try to help you in your own language.

"One word best describes Québec City: romantic. Old Québec City looks as if it had been plucked from some charming area in France and gently reassembled on and around an imposing, high-cliffed headland jutting into the powerful Saint Lawrence River.

Québec City is an eminently human habitation of winding streets and venerable buildings that exude more than four centuries of history. Unlike flashy and frenetic Montréal, Québec City is sedate, elegant, and completely secure in its position as the spiritual and political capital of French Canada.

Some 95 percent of its half million people are of French descent. Not many years ago, the city’s elite were mostly of Anglo-Saxon stock, but their number has greatly diminished with the rise of the Québécois and the assertion of their right to be “masters of their own house.” Luckily for the visitor, most of the people who work in the city will try to help you in your own language."